Loudoun Now for March 10, 2022

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n LOUDOUN

Pg. 4 | n LEESBURG

VOL. 7, NO. 16

Pg. 8 | n EDUCATION

Pg. 9 | n OBITUARIES

Pg. 19 | n PUBLIC NOTICES

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Competing Football Stadium Bills Head to Negotiations

MARCH 10, 2022

Local State of Emergency Officially Ends BY RENSS GREENE

BY RENSS GREENE AND NORMAN K. STYER

rgreene@loudounnow.com

rgreene@loudounnow.com nstyer@loudounnow.com

The Virginia House of Delegates and Senate have passed very different versions of a bill to create a Virginia Football Stadium Authority in a bid to attract the Washington Commanders games to the commonwealth, and now the future of that authority falls to six legislators appointed to a committee. Missing from that committee: Anybody representing any of the three sites reportedly under consideration for the new stadium. According to state legislators two possible sites are in Prince William County and one in Loudoun. The Loudoun site at the southeast quadrant of Rt. 28 and Old Ox Road, currently Loudoun Quarries, is near plans for an expansive mixed-use development, Rivana at Innovation Station. It is also a site considered by a previous Baseball Stadium Authority to attract a Major League Baseball team to Virginia. That site is located in districts represented by Del. Suhas Subramanyam (D86) and Sen. Jennifer B. Boysko (D-33). The two sites in Prince William County are on undeveloped land on Telegraph Road near Summit School Road, and in the Potomac Shores Community. Those are represented by Dels. Luke E. Torian (D-52) and Candi Mundon King (D-2) and Sen. Scott A. Surovell (D-36). None of those were appointed to the

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Hayley Milon Bour/ Loudoun Now

The proposed stadium site in Loudoun in currently Loudoun Quarries, southeast of Rt. 28 and Old Ox Road.

conference committee, which includes Virginia Beach Del. Barry D. Knight (R81), Danville Del. Daniel W. Marshall III (R-14), and Chesapeake Del. C.E. Cliff Hayes Jr. (D-77), joined by Springfield Sen. Richard L. Saslaw (D-35), Bedford County Sen. Stephen D. Newman (R23) and Alexandria Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-30). Knight and Saslaw were the two bills’ patrons.

Commanders owner Daniel Snyder is pursuing a project that would incorporate a new NFL stadium in a larger mixeduse development. The Loudoun site, now home to a quarry operation, previously was rezoned to allow construction of a large mixed-use community known as

Loudoun’s state of local emergency, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and first declared on March 17, 2020, ended just a couple of weeks short of two years the evening of Tuesday, March 1. News of a new virus spotted in China had been circulating since late 2019, but life in the U.S. largely proceeded as normal. The first case of “coronavirus disease 2019” was announced in Loudoun on March 10, 2020. That first press conference would soon become unthinkable—all the leading figures in Loudoun government’s response to the pandemic, including the county chair, Fire-Rescue chief, sheriff, Health Department director, Leesburg mayor and others, standing together unmasked in the county boardroom. In those early days, people were urged not to stockpile supplies like hand sanitizer, and to leave the masks for the professionals. On March 16, 2020, Loudoun County Administrator Tim Hemstreet issued a declaration of local emergency. Supervisors followed that up with a confirming vote the next day, launching the county government

STADIUM AUTHORITY continues on page 39

EMERGENCY ENDS continues on page 37

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